TechnologyMarch 23, 2026· 5 min read

Why Messaging Has Become the Backbone for Modern Workshops

By Tjeerd Prenger

When was the last time you called your mechanic to book a service? Chances are you didn't. You sent a WhatsApp message. Maybe a photo of a warning light on your dashboard. Maybe just "can you fit me in Thursday morning?" And you expected an answer within minutes, not hours.

This shift — from phone calls and emails to instant messaging — isn't happening because the automotive industry is planning it. It's happening because consumers are changing. And workshops are following.

The numbers tell the story

This isn't a European quirk — it's a global shift. Over three billion people use WhatsApp every month. In markets like Brazil, India, and Indonesia, messaging-first business communication is already the norm. Europe is catching up fast.

WhatsApp penetration across the continent tells the story. Italy and Spain sit above 90%. Germany is at 81% and growing. The UK has over 40 million monthly active users. France, historically slower to adopt, is accelerating. And in Greece, Bulgaria, and across the Balkans, Viber is the dominant platform — over 90% market share in Greece and Bulgaria alone. Different app, same behaviour.

The common thread: messaging is replacing the phone call. The specific app varies by market, but the behaviour is identical. Customers want to reach their workshop the way they reach everyone else in their lives — with a quick message and a fast reply.

What this means for workshops

The data backs up what any workshop owner already knows from experience. WhatsApp Business messages see a 98% open rate. Email sits at roughly 20%. Click-through rates tell an even sharper story: 45-60% on WhatsApp versus 2-5% on email.

This isn't a marketing statistic. It's an operational reality. When a workshop sends a booking confirmation, a quote for approval, or a reminder that a service is due — the message that gets read is the one that arrives on WhatsApp or Viber. Not the one that lands in a spam folder.

Two out of three consumers now say they prefer messaging over email or phone to communicate with a business. For workshops, where the relationship is personal and local, that preference is even stronger.

The problem with unstructured messaging

Here's where it gets complicated. Before starting Carsu, I visited workshops across Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. The one thing that was identical in every market: shop owners and managers are using messaging to run their customer relationships. And every single one of them is doing it from a personal phone.

That's how most workshops — whether they're tyre shops, motorcycle specialists, or general repair garages — are adopting messaging. Organically. The owner starts replying to customers on WhatsApp from a personal device. Then a second person in the shop starts doing the same. Then photos of worn brake pads, dashboard warnings, and damaged tyres start coming in alongside holiday messages and football scores.

There's no structure. No record that connects to the job card. No way to know if the customer who messaged at 8am actually got a reply. No way to send a professional quote that links to a booking.

The communication channel is right. The workflow around it is missing.

And this is harder to fix than most people think. You can't just create a WhatsApp Business account and call it done. Structured messaging means connecting conversations to job cards, linking quotes to bookings, tracking response times, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks when three people in the shop are all replying from different devices. Most workshops that try to organise their messaging end up with a slightly tidier version of the same chaos.

This is the gap that separates workshops that use messaging from workshops that are messaging-first. Using messaging means replying to WhatsApp when you remember. Being messaging-first means the message is the start of a structured process — from enquiry to quote to booking to job completion to follow-up.

Where email still fits — and where it doesn't

Email isn't dead in workshops. It still works for sending invoices, job reports, and formal documentation. But by the time an email is sent, the deal is already done.

The conversation that leads to a booking — the back and forth about availability, the photo of a warning light, the quick price check — that's happening on messaging. Workshops are physical, fast-paced environments. Whether it's a tyre shop, a motorcycle specialist, or a general mechanic — the person handling customer communication is often the same person ordering parts and turning wrenches. They're on their feet, phone in pocket, glancing at notifications between jobs. Not sitting at a desk refreshing an inbox.

A WhatsApp message requires a glance and a thumb. An email requires stopping, switching apps, reading, composing, and sending. Customers feel the difference too — sending a photo of a worn tread, a leaking fork seal, or a check engine light and getting a quick "come in tomorrow, we'll sort it" takes 30 seconds on messaging. On email, it takes a day. By phone, it takes three attempts to connect.

Messaging-first is not messaging-only

Being messaging-first doesn't mean abandoning everything else. Workshops still need a phone number. Some customers still walk in unannounced. Enterprise fleet managers might still prefer email.

But the default channel — the one that increasingly handles the majority of daily customer interactions in workshops across Europe — is messaging. Building the business around that reality, rather than treating it as an add-on, changes everything. It means the booking system starts with a message. The quote goes out as a message. The reminder is a message. The follow-up is a message.

The workshop that structures its messaging well doesn't just communicate better. It books more jobs, reduces no-shows, and builds the kind of repeat relationship that no website or marketplace can replicate.

What comes next

Over 200 million businesses worldwide now use WhatsApp Business tools. The platform is investing heavily in business features — catalogues, payments, automated responses. Viber is doing the same in its core markets. The infrastructure for messaging-first business operations is being built in real time.

For workshops, the question is quickly becoming not whether to use messaging, but whether to treat it as a casual habit or as the backbone of how the business operates.

And this isn't just a workshop question. If you're a distributor or manufacturer, your brand visibility increasingly depends on a moment you may not have optimised for. When a mechanic sends a customer a quote or a product recommendation, that conversation is happening on WhatsApp or Viber. A workshop with structured messaging can share your product details, pricing, and availability in seconds — professionally, from a business account. A workshop without it is fumbling for a part number in a chat thread full of holiday photos. Your brand either shows up at the point of service, or it doesn't show up at all.

The workshops that figure this out first will be the hardest to compete with. The same goes for the brands behind them.